Curtiss-Wright Digital Beachhead

SAN FRANCISCO--Taking open systems and commercial-off-the-shelf
(COTS) concepts to a new level, Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense
Solutions Thursday (Sept. 20) announced a new, compact system
designed to simplify technology architectures and reduce clutter in
military ground vehicles.

"Today, vehicles may have five systems each with GPS--data, time
position orientation and speed--each with own antenna," said David
Jedynak, manager of advanced solutions for CWCDS (Ashburn, Va.). "That's a lot of logistics and maintenance nightmares."

The Digital Beachhead system combines a 16-port gigabit ethernet
network switch--backward compatible to 10/100 Mbit/s--with a high
performance, power-efficient vehicle management computer, according
to CWCDS. It leverages ARM processors for the automotive space
and commercial networking silicon for networking and telecoms market
as part of the COTS philosophy, said Aaron Frank, product marketing
manager for networking switching and routing products.

The system, costing under $5,000 in volume, is expected to ship near
the end of the fourth quarter for U.S. Army vehicles and will be
introduced for the U.K.’s Generic Vehicle Architecture (GVA) and
other similar initiatives world-wide later, Frank said.

"At this price point the Digital Beachhead is a cost-effective
solution that will bring digital backbones into every vehicle in the
fleet," he added.